weird, when formatting...

forcer

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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my drives...

A:/ Floppy Drive
C:/ Master HDD - ntfs(60gig)
D:/ Slave HDD - fat32(40gig)
E:/ CD-ROM


but when i went to format i typed

format c: ... and it attempted to format my 40gig drive
so then i typed:
format d: ... it sed cannot format network drive

what the hell is going on? and why cant i format the real master c drive
 
Where did you type format c:?

Did you start your computer from a Win98 boot disk? It cannot read NTFS drives.

You can do everything just from the XP cd.
 
its a win me boot disk a think.. i download a file from bootdisk.com

Windows Me OEM

does that read ntfs drives? and i dont think my xp disk is bootable but al giv it a go
 
Doesn't matter if it is a 98 or ME boot disk. You would have to use fdisk first to delete the "non dos partition", then you could format it, but you are limited to FAT32 file system.

What do you want to do? Reinstall XP?

If you have a original XP cd it is bootable. You likely will have to change the boot order in the BIOS first to be able to boot from cd.
 
i want to format the drive then do a clean install of xp

whats better NTFS or FAT32? whats do they actually mean, whats the differences?
 
thanx for the information... so this is what i think i need to do...

fdisk my drive and delete the partition
then create a new partition which will be FAT32
then boot from an XP Disk and choose to convert to NTFS when it asks

can any1 jus confirm that? thanx

also... my slave drive is FAT32 its 40 gig should i convert that to NTFS aswell?
 
cud any1 just confirm my last post before i go ahead? thanx

also how can i format a FAT32 drive to NTFS even tho it has no OS on it(slave)
 
the way you said to install it is good. deleting the partition then recreating the partition is the best way to do it. After you get the os installed and you check your disk management you should see the extra drive in there. you can format from there or when you right click on it from the my computer folder, you can format it like that. What do you want to format it to ?? if can stay as fat32 if you are just using it for storage. some cases though you have to be careful with formatting it. There is a possibility that data will be lost. So it's smart to back any data up before doing it ..
 
Forcer, if you have a bootable XP cd you can skip every step done from the floppies. Just boot to the cd, enter setup and follow the instructions.
 
converting the D: drive will be simple.. once XP is installed just go to a command prompt and type the following "convert D: /fs:ntfs" . You may also wish to add the /X switch to the end to force the volume to dismount if you really don't want to reboot... just remember not to have any programs open from that particular drive. Generally speaking, it's safer to let it reboot and do it so that there is no possibility of files being open from that volume and no data being corrupted.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
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Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
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